Varieties in state capitalism: Outward FDI strategies of central and local state-owned enterprises from emerging economy countries

Ming Hua Li, Lin Cui and Jiangyong Lu
Additional contact information
Ming Hua Li: Department of International Economics and Management, Copenhagen Business School, Frederiksberg, Denmark
Lin Cui: Research School of Management, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
Jiangyong Lu: Guanghua School of Management, Peking University, Beijing, China

Journal of International Business Studies, 2014, vol. 45, issue 8, 980-1004

Abstract: Institutional diversity characterizing state-owned enterprises (SOEs) from emerging economies holds critical but under-examined implications for their internationalization activities. Different types of SOEs can exhibit distinct motivations, strategic resources, and adaptive capabilities for penetrating foreign markets. To understand how such idiosyncratic differences emerge, we conceptualize the heterogeneity of SOEs as an outcome of multiple institutional reform processes – administrative and fiscal decentralization, industrial restructuring, and market liberalization – which create diversity between SOEs affiliated with central and local levels of government. Building on the idea of “institutions-as-configurations”, we elucidate how such reforms reconfigure SOEs’ constellation of resources, capabilities, and priorities which shape the parameters of their ability to negotiate for home and host country institutional legitimacy. Specifically, we propose that the restructuring of central SOEs into “national champions” exposes them to stronger institutional pressures from home and host country governments while local SOEs which have fewer obligations to serve national strategic prerogatives display greater managerial autonomy and market orientation, but lower levels of monopolistic behavior. We discuss how such contrasting attributes contribute to variations in SOEs’ international business diversification patterns, foreign subsidiary establishment and ownership modes, and overseas location preferences. Recognition of SOEs’ organizational diversity holds important implications for theories on state-owned multinationals.

Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (89)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jibs/journal/v45/n8/pdf/jibs201414a.pdf Link to full text PDF (application/pdf)
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jibs/journal/v45/n8/full/jibs201414a.html Link to full text HTML (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:jintbs:v:45:y:2014:i:8:p:980-1004

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... nt/journal/41267/PS2

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of International Business Studies is currently edited by John Cantwell

More articles in Journal of International Business Studies from Palgrave Macmillan, Academy of International Business
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().